Wi Fi and Hi Fi

Mr. Porter, Albert: are you as incredibly discerning when buying computer equipment as when buying audio equipment? Good day.

At my place we ran a wireless and had problems with it slowing down as Jeff said things got real slow(we had three machines here at that time)- between me and you I think it was all the porn my father was downloading! We went wired and it was cheap, easy and no more problems at all with speed. As for interference with the audio system I didn't notice any difference at all with either LAN. The other problem with amplifing the signal on a wireless network is that it can be pirated and in my area there were a lot of problems with people cloning your ID and using it for less then honorable uses(just like the early days of cell phones). With a wired network that isn't near as big of a problem, if a problem at all.

Mr. Porter,

My listening room also serves as my home office. I have DSL, feeding a Linksys A + G wireless router which is located in my dual purpose listening room. I do not even have any dedicated lines or tweaks. I have two computers a printer , and a fax on almost ll day everyday except late night when I want to relax.

During the day, the sound is ok mostly. At night, the system is usually dead quiet. I am sure there could be improvements made. But I do not hear any ill effects from having all that equipment in my room.

If you can run CAT 5 cable rather than use wi-fi, you should have more consistent speed and certainly better security. Further, it strikes me that the fewer wireless signals that are generated in close proximity to anything (including the people in the house), the better off one is. There may or may not be interference (or health effect) from using wi-fi but there certainly isn't one if you don't.

Having said that, I have a 802.11b system as it was the only way to get hi-speed access my son's computer without doing things that would upset my wife aesthetically. Hmmm, WAF exisits with computers too.

I will only add that the first thing that someone should do when running any type of wireless link would be to change the password or access code. Many people leave the password at the factory default, making it VERY easy for others to hack into your system. I know this for a fact as i have customers that have purchased high gain directional antennas for this very purpose. Sitting in my shop and using one of their antennas and laptops, I've seen a customer log into a nearby business that is over a mile away with consistent results. This is with the antenna INSIDE my shop, which is loaded with tons of metal and typically provides horrible reception for most cell phones and high frequency receivers. As such, a hacker with such an antenna mounted outside of their house or on their vehicle could literally pick up a strong signal for multiple miles. Some of these folks literally drive around in their cars looking for open wi-fi's, logging the addresses and hacking into the systems. This is called "war driving" amongst computer geeks.

Needless to say, once someone found that entrance into your computer network, they could do anything that they wanted to if they were skilled at hacking. Given the fact that only a "skilled hacker" would be going this far to get into someone's computer, you better do what you can to maintain security. I can tell you a few stories ( funny to listen to, horrible if you were the recipient ) of jokes they've played on people with passwords in the default position. This is not to mention the illegal activities that they could do ( if they wanted to ) using your computer as the source. BE CAREFUL !!! Sean
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PS... One would think that these would be big antennas, but due to the very high frequency that they operate on, the antennas are quite small. A 13 element yagi with tremendous gain is less than two foot long and fits into a small diameter section of PVC tubing. As such, they don't even look like an antenna in the least.